


Persuasion

by executrix



Category: Blake's 7
Genre: Alternate Universe - Jane Austen Fusion, Clones, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-11
Updated: 2020-07-11
Packaged: 2021-03-05 01:20:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,105
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25206106
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/executrix/pseuds/executrix
Summary: In this sequel to a zine fic, "Stuff and Nonsense," a Jane Austen-world AU, the crew of the Liberator discovers that even two Avons is enough to raise Hell.
Relationships: Kerr Avon/Clone Kerr Avon, Roj Blake/Kerr Avon, Roj Blake/Kerr Avon/clone Kerr Avon
Comments: 13
Kudos: 9





	Persuasion

It has often been asked, why the name "Kerr" is so seldom uttered canonically. Perhaps this explains why--and also explains that, although it was Blake's tragedy to come a great distance to destroy something that is not there...perhaps others have suffered similarly.

VOLUME ONE  
I.

It was perverse, he knew. Under such circumstances, voluptuous sensations ought not to be experienced. His blood should, quite simply, be running cold, and that should be why he shivered.

Fitzwilliam Kerr-Avon was honest enough to acknowledge that his emotions and sensations were more complex, and more discreditable. 

Travis Crawford's body pressed closely to his--well, it might be argued that that should provoke a reciprocal excitement. The strength of Crawford's sole arm, rigid as an iron bar: that, too, might be kindly received. But not when the strength of that arm was deployed across one's own throat. And not when Crawford's one hand held a pistol, in an easy grip. When no permission had been given--or asked!--to affix those fetters, of very cold steel, binding one's wrists.

The communicating door to the next room was thrown open. At first, all Kerr-Avon could see of the next room was a bit of striped wallpaper, and a very large looking-glass, elaborately framed. 

Craning his neck, Kerr-Avon could just see Crawford's sister, Miss Servalan--or one and a half of her: her person, and the reflection of the back of her head and upper body.

Miss Servalan was dressed for riding (manifesting once again her deplorable tendency to wear a hat indoors, at times when she was not the hostess of a tea party). A bit of veiling--black, beaded in jet--adorned the shining cylinder of her top hat. The redingote of her habit was closely tailored, of the finest black barathea, with collar and revers of the densest velvet. Its skirt, draped of course to conform to her sidesaddle, was a daring froth of white silk shrouded in white tulle. The black boots, polished to a mirror, peeped beneath the hem of her habit.

The handle of her riding crop was peculiarly fashioned: a lizard, carved out of crystal.

"On your feet," she said, gazing down at the floor.

Kerr-Avon felt an odd, diffuse, unpleasant sensation at his ribcage.

A grunt could just be descried, on the other side of the door. At the sound, Kerr-Avon looked up, and in the mirror, saw:

Himself. 

No, the mirror was not arranged to reflect anything in the room where Kerr-Avon now stood. Somehow, his very face and form (and even to the very clothes he wore) were duplicated in that other room.

"You will tell me what Avalon told Blake of her plans for the Resistance," Miss Servalan said, in a low, yet carrying, voice.

"You may go to the Devil," said the Other, amused and malicious. Kerr-Avon was startled--was that what his voice sounded like to others? It sounded rather different from the inside.

"You have all his memories," Servalan said. "So you know, and so you can--and will--tell me."

"I suppose that he would not," the Other said. "He is accounted a brave man, or arrogant at the least. No more shall I."

Kerr-Avon's deduction, on the evidence of the hiss of a lash, and a soft gasp from the other room, was confirmed by a sting across his own shoulders. What the hell? 

Perhaps an android had been assembled, of the sophistication of the false Avalon. But could androids experience pain, far less transmit it to someone else, however similar that person might be?

Travis had not slackened his grip. "We've been to the Clone Masters," he said. "And a very expensive shopping excursion it was, too."

"Then you ought not to damage the merchandise," Kerr-Avon said. In the other room, Servalan paid no heed.

II  
Let it be left in the lap of the gods, then. Before venturing out, Avon had left a note for Blake on the console for the analytical engine: "Servalan says that she has something to show me, that will make me rich, and I must come alone. Of course, this is a trap. Decide for yourself what it is well to do, if I have not returned by the time for my next watch. It may be that she herself will fall into the trap, if you can capture her and that soi-disant brother of hers."

Thoughtfully, he included the coordinates to which he had made planetfall.

III  
When Travis' attention was distracted by the commotion nearby, Kerr-Avon was able to break his grip and send the pistol flying across the room, where it was of use to neither of them. But, fettered as he was, that was all he was able to do. 

Blake came in through one of the French doors. "It's all right, Vila," he called. "I've got Kerr-Avon."

"But I've got Kerr-Avon," Colonel Restal said querulously, from the other room, where he held Servalan at bay with a dueling pistol.

Travis Crawford dashed through the French door that Blake had left open. "Restal, take care of the handcuffs," Blake called over his shoulder, as he went in pursuit.

A simple pair of handcuffs--or rather, two duplicate pairs on two duplicate captives--posed but a moment's challenge to Colonel Restal. Once the moment passed, he ran after Blake.

Kerr-Avon, helplessly drawn, ensorcelled, went to the side of his replica. "Are you all right?"

"Trifling scratches," the Other One said. "As I daresay you know yourself. For what one of us experiences, the other feels to some degree, is that not true?"

"Ought we not to experiment?" Kerr-Avon found himself unable not to say. He had no way of knowing if he gathered the other into his arms, or if the other embraced him. No one--of course!--had ever fitted so perfectly into his arms, or had ever known how to kiss so precisely for his exaltation. Never had anyone yielded with such absolute pleasure to his embrace. He did not experience the other's sensations as strongly as his own (he thought that, perhaps his frame would be shattered, if he had) but they were real enough, and vital.

Never had he known such culmination, combining frenzy and absolute peace. Certainly not from one kiss.

At last--an offer truly worthy of him!

They separated--perhaps "broke apart" would better denote the sensation of loss they felt--as Blake and Restal returned to the room, a thin plume of smoke still shrouding the pistols they had fired in vain. "They ran off, dammit," Blake said. "Mutoids and all. Well, best get back to the ship--the lot of you!" He grinned, and demonstrated the operation of a teleport bracelet to their newly rescued castaway.

IV  
Kerr-Avon rounded the corner into the teleport bay, where Gan was on duty. Kerr-Avon's Other Self sat on a corner of the console. There was a jug of lemon barley water and two glasses, and the Other Self topped up Gan's glass, handed him half an egg-and-cress sandwich, and bit into the other half.

Gan was greatly impressed by this show of condescension from an Alpha grade, although he wondered whether a clone is necessarily of a labor grade (for it is subject to the whims of Clone Masters and purchasers) or assumes the class position of its prototype.

"Fitzwilliam!" he said. "Gan's told me ever so much about Demeter. You never told me it was such an interesting place."

"I never knew," Kerr-Avon said. "Indeed I don't know now, or care to."

The Other Self shrugged at Gan, to apologize.

"Oh, we're all used to him by now," Gan said heartily. Well, if we're only rationed to a single Kerr-Avon, I know which one I'd like to keep, Gan thought.

V  
"Enough to make your head spin, isn't it?" Colonel Restal asked  
expansively. "Two Kerr-Avons! Why, I never expected to see such a sight this side of Tartarus!"

"Perhaps of Heaven, dear," Calliope said.

"I'm sure in time we shall learn to tell them apart," Jenna said. "Everyone doubtless has been acquainted with a pair of twins who have played naughty pranks and tried confusions, but sooner or later there are signs that permit distinction between the two." 

Kerr-Avon found a space on the flight deck sopha that was not unpleasantly crowded with humanity, and sat down on it, his arms crossed. "There is an ancient parable, of a wealthy miser who--rather like Crawford, come to think of it!--had only one eye. He made up in some sense for this deficiency by purchasing the finest glass eye that artisans and artists could devise. He resisted all pleas for alms, until one day a clever beggar caught him out. The miser said that he would yield a golden coin, if the mendicant could detect which was the glass eye. 'It must be the left eye," said the beggar--'For that is the one with the compassionate look.'" 

"So if you're being nice, Kerr-Avon, we'll know it isn't you. I've got it!" the Colonel proclaimed. "We'll just call you Avon--suits you, that--and call him Kerr. We might not know which one is which, but at least we'll know what to call whichever one we think you are. Now, the other chap--your brother or what-ye-may-call--*he* is a fellow who knows how to do the agreeable. I don't think I've met a man as charming since--well, since Wiccoby. Obvious that you and he weren't brought up together!"

At the name of Wiccoby, Cally blushed and looked away.

"Oh, sorry, m'dear," Restal said, taking her hand and pressing it to his lips.

//The more charming man is not always the better man,// Cally sent, thinking of the letter from her sister.

Avon was able to detect the message, and it somewhat salved his bruised self-regard.

VOLUME TWO  
VI  
"Restal," Blake whispered, "You're a man, you understand these things. I simply must have the same sleep shift as Kerr-Avon tonight. Ask me for anything to exchange with you, and I will give it you."

"No need to give anything, dear fellow," the Colonel said. "Except...well, there's that jolly fine bottle of brandy that you think is hidden in the space behind your underwear drawer..."

"Very well, you shall have it," Blake rapped out. "But the devil take you if you try to come and collect it tonight!"

"Like we said in the Domes," Restal said placidly. "Don't come a-knockin' when the hovercraft's a-rockin'."

It was 10:00 ship time when the door to Blake's cabin opened, and his two Kerr-Avons stood before him, one resting his head trustingly on the shoulder of the other, an arm thrown about his waist.

Avon (as now we may denominate Kerr-Avon the First) removed his arm from his counterpart's shoulder, and gently pushed him in Blake's direction. "Go on, have the first kiss," he said, knowing that he would experience it himself as well as observing it.

Blake felt unsteady as he took the second Kerr-Avon into his arms. His body felt familiar, of course, and had the familiar contours of his beloved, combined with the excitement of a new partner (for aught Blake could remember, but the second of his lifetime). 

Avon moved a little apart, and watched and felt that kiss, with a renewed thrill of exploration. He willed himself to stand apart, until he could tolerate the yearning no longer, and he stood behind Blake and sunk his mouth into the junction between his lover's neck and shoulders. His hands grasped those of his counterpart, while all four of their arms continued to cosset Blake in their strong embrace.

Blake felt like a medal being poured: molten, between the positive and negative dies. He groaned, as if his very soul were being ripped away from its moorings. 

He struggled free of their grasp, and tore his shirt away from his body as if it had come from Nessus' workshop and not the Wardrobe Room. In moments, he had disrobed completely, and tottered toward the bed on shaking legs. Then it was his turn as observer, as the Gemini, with many a caress, whether light or lingering, and many a kiss, began to divest one another of their identical garments. 

It was quite vain, Blake knew, to attempt to expedite the disrobing of even one Kerr-Avon, who seemed to take delight in teazing his impatient audience to the point of madness. And with two of them, the difficulties might be doubled. Or squared. So there was nothing for it, but to wait until two neatly folded piles of velvet, moleskin, and linen-lawn stood guarded by the sentinels of four brightly polished boots. Indeed it was not the least agreeable task of his life, to wait so.

But at last the matter was completed, and Kerr sat next to Blake on the bed, and stroked his chest gently. The other tarried to fetch the pot of ointment, fragrant with sandalwood, secreted at the back of the wardrobe.

"Why don't you look on, as I prepare him for you?" the first Kerr-Avon asked. Blake thought his heart would rip through the imprisoning ribs.

Nor was Avon's composure at its ordinary level, as he stroked that body that was and was not his own, in readiness for the act of love that he both would and would not experience. Thorough preparations completed, he kissed Kerr lightly on the mouth, and licked the hollow beneath one cheekbone. Then he sat on the floor, next to the bed (which was scarcely large enough to accommodate two; three were not to be thought of).

You've a thousand jade's tricks, haven't you? Blake thought. Every thrust was echoed by the motion of the body beneath him, and every groan forced deep from within Blake's lungs was translated below into softer gasps--rather like their analytical engine translating the code of a Federation communique.

He might have been mistaken, but Blake thought he heard someone--he scarcely knew whom, it might easily have been himself--whisper, "I love you." But he was by no means certain to whom the sentiment was directed.

Blake twisted his torso around, so he could look at Avon. Avon's eyes were closed, his head flung back, and his fingernails etched the palms of his closed fists. Then, as if he sensed Blake's gaze, Avon opened his eyes. He half-rose, bent forward, seized Blake's face in both his hands, and kissed him profoundly, carefully counterpointing the rhythm of those strokes to the thrusts occurring further down.

"I can't endure it any longer--" Blake said, and yielded to an ecstasy sustained enough to rack his trembling frame near a dozen times. Then it was the arms of Morpheus that he found himself entangled in.

VII  
"And now," they said, linked hand in hand.

Clearly there was no room on the bed, and neither had the heart to dispossess their mutual lover. Avon pointed out that there was some spare bedding in the cupboard, so they constructed a sort of nest on the floor, and lay down in a swathe of white linen and great square cushions. 

They had no need to negotiate what was to be done, for they knew. Like the Oriental symbol (dark and light united in one), like the sign of the Fish, they lay side by side. Each knew to a scintilla how much could be accommodated, and what combination of moistures, heats, and pressures would blot out all cognition and suffuse all feeling in that most intense of all delightful sensations.

And so they each refrained from adding that culminating touch, until they were quite certain that no further pleasure might be obtained (directly or by proxy), and then each applied the finishing stroke, until an annealing, and well-nigh annihilating, union was achieved.

VIII  
It was a great relief to Blake to have another expert in analytical engines on his ship. Few men in the Universe truly understood those balky, uncooperative assortments of gears and tubes, or could produce the painstaking punched tapes needed to furnish the instructions that underpinned vocal communications between man and machine.

It had taken many laborious hours merely to manage commands as simple as "Standard by Six" or "Erect Force Wall." But it was work that could be done while manning the controls of the great ship, so on Avon's watch, he scanned the punched tape for errors before feeding it in to the analytical engine's capacious maw.

That's odd, he thought. I'm quite sure that I encoded but three hundred and forty lines, yet there are more than four hundred lines here.

IX  
"No, don't put on the light," Jenna said. "Suddenly, I feel quite shy."

Avon shut the door quietly, knelt next to the bed (after all, he could find his way around the Liberator's cabins, light or no light) and embraced Jenna.

"She seems to have taken a fancy to me," Kerr told him quite six hours since. "Far more than to you, whom evidently she cannot abide. Damme if she hasn't invited me to her cabin an hour after commencement of her sleepshift. I expect I should have been her first if..."

"If?"

"Well now, why don't you go along in my place, and I shall be in your boudoir with our precious Commander?"

Avon stroked Jenna's hair, took her right hand in both of his, and held her hand and kissed the fingertips until he felt her relax slightly. He bent again, and kissed her forehead. 

"I'm so glad you're here," Jenna whispered. "Here on the ship, and here with me. Oh, you look like him, all right, but you're not like him, in yourself. Not so cold. Not so cruel. Positively human, indeed."

For a moment he was jealous of his other self, for so easily obtaining the regard of their fellow crew members. Ah yes, Avon thought, one corner of his mouth quirking--he gained in a moment, what it took me so much effort to throw away!

And suddenly this seemed like a damned poor joke after all.

Avon sat up, and in a harsh voice ordered the lights to come on.  
"Jenna, I'm sorry," he said, and wondered if she had ever heard those words from his lips. The odds were that she had not, as so few people had.

She sat up, and clutched the sheet to herself (which served no real function for the protection of modesty, as she was clad in a white cambric night-gown, trimmed in blue ribbons that flattered her complexion, and the gown extended from her neck to her ancles, and fully covered her arms down to the wrist-frill).

In a second, the modest maiden vanished, and the warrior re-appeared. It is to be regretted that she not merely backhanded Avon across the face (harder than one would anticipate, knowing of her gentle upbringing) but, it must be said, called him a "bastard."

As he left her cabin, on her orders, wondering if at least Kerr had felt the blow, he reflected that it was only one's more decent impulses that conduced to trouble. If he had gone ahead and made use of the willing wench, as he had so many before her...

But indeed, was she willing? It was, he concluded, a philosophical conundrum, such as Paracelsus, their analytical engine, sometimes attempted to bandy with him. For could she be said to consent, when it was merely someone wearing his face and body to whom she intended to yield? And there was sport enough to be found on land, sea, and space, without forcing those whose desires were contrary.

Apropos of which, at that time a wave of pleasure washed through him, rendering him nearly helpless. He knew that his lover and the other portion of himself must now be closely embraced on his bed. It would no doubt have been remarkable, he thought, to superimpose these diffuse sensations over the more acute sensations of Miss Stannis' initial experience of bodily love.

But where, then, to go? His own bed was very thoroughly occupied indeed. Gan was on watch. There had been little enough sympathy between them at the best of times. Now Gan made no secret of how much the more agreeable he found Kerr to be. So perhaps the flight deck was to be avoided. His own former cabin, then, now assigned to his other self?

No, that seemed unfair. He knew himself to be a private man--how much the more so, his simulacrum might be. So he went to the analytical engine room, and resumed his labors.

Once again, there were lines of code he could not recollect writing. Something might have occurred to impair his memory, and for a moment such a fear made him tremble.

But then he bethought of a simpler explanation, and deduced that it was not his memory that was at fault, but his judgment. Wryly, he acquitted himself--or any man!--of the extremest fault in permitting his discretion to be weakened by a flow of voluptuous sensations.

Indeed, the honey trap is an ancient resort of spymasters. Avon could but congratulate Servalan's ingenuity in the selection of an object seductive enough to paralyze both his and Blake's judgment. A bait on purpose laid to make the taker mad, indeed.

Oh, they had fallen into traps enough, to confuse them. For how many had they escaped by luck, how many by superior force of arms, how many times had they been set free in furtherance of the aims of their foes--and how, by this time, could they tell the difference?

X  
There had been numerous occasions when Kerr-Avon had taken the thought of killing himself, and tumbled it about in his head (as adepts of natural history take pebbles from stream beds and tumble them about to polish them). Indeed, what thoughtful person has not? But always he assumed that the result of self-slaughter would at least be bodily death, and (as he assumed; he greatly feared the contrary) death forever.

It had not occurred to him that it would be possible, in solemn earnest and no metaphor, to kill himself and yet walk away, still breathing and, although doubtless doomed, nonetheless still in his first life.

XI  
Kerr proceeded down the corridor leading away from the galley. There was a small smile on his face, although his lips remained closed. He held a glass of heated milk, prepared for Blake. It seemed to gleam, in the white lights of the corridor.

"Then look for me by moonlight, I'll come to thee by moonlight, though Hell should bar the way," he thought.

Suddenly, that seemed to him the funniest thing in the Universe, and he threw his head back and laughed. For, when he placed six drops of laudanum in the glass of warm milk, he placed two drops in a beaker of water, and drank it down himself. 

XII  
Avon opened the door to the dark room, and light from the corridor spilled in.

The tableau that greeted him was: Kerr, quite naked, kneeling over an unmoving Blake, who was still clad in his nightshirt. 

Pressing a pillow over Blake's face.

Avon pulled him away, by means of an arm locked around his neck. The pillow, unattended, fell to the floor.

Avon had no weapons, and no time to find anything that might be turned to a hostile purpose. So. It must be by his hands, then, at the closest range.

"You are none of us," Avon said. "You are Servalan's creature."

"'Us?' Does that not signify yourself and me--our two selves, and our one self? Avon, we do not need Blake. We do not need anyone at all. Together, we can sail the Universe and repel any threat. From anyone."

At the noise of struggle, Blake awoke. "Hoy, lads, enthusiasm is well enough, but no need to destroy the furniture," he said. Then he realized that the desperate battle was earnest, not feigned, and he sought to intervene, but his limbs would not cooperate.

Blake heard the soft snap with which Avon--full knowing what he would experience--broke Kerr's neck.

XIII  
And so they were discovered, in the morning, by the others.  
One body, already growing cold, lay stretched out on the floor, its head cradled in the lap of its simulacrum and the coverlet serving as its shroud. Blake, kneeling on the floor, his arm about his lover's shoulders. One of them could not weep, and one did not permit himself, so Blake wept for all of them.

FINIS


End file.
